Hello! Useless author here! I'm currently trying to rewrite everything, meaning that all the content in the chapters will soon* be completely changed, my desire to bang my head against a wall will increase and the synopsis will certainly get a little face-lift aswel. So if you had previously read the chapters or about to do it, just forget. Thanks for the attention.
*take note that the meaning of the word 'soon' is extremely relative, could be a month, three months, half a year...Dependent on my ability to write something of acceptable quality which is extremely uncertain.
Chapter 6: Bad luck Brion, Magic and Forced training?
In a cave deep underground, in the Scion mountains separating the free country of Opalk from Lerass, two hooded men were discussing in a fairly wide room, glancing at a tree shaped black crystal emiting a purple light from the ten or so branches. The light wasn't warm at all but rather cold and drepressing, tainting the whole room in a inhospitable hue.
"How is the corrupted tree?" Asked the first man without moving his proud eyes from the strange tree.
"Reacting like it should and slowly but surely growing with each monster it corrupts, master Eins." Responded the hooded young man at his side after fliping through a bloc of notes.
"Did the corruption spread to any lerassian?"
"Nothing in our recorded data is indicating such behaviors."
"Good grief, Any problems with the control over the monsters?"
"Yes, unfortunately there are some specimens which were able to fight against the corruption, enabling them to keep a glimpse of free will however the orders previously implanted are still in action."
"How many of these?"
"Three cases recorded master."
"Where?"
"A xozedezn and a crust in the central part as well as a treant less than five kilometers south from the guardian's barrier. Apparently it confirms that the corruption need more time to totally spread in more powerful individuals."
"I can understand the xozedezn and the crust, but how was the treant able to resist the corruption?"
"It seems it was an especially strong treant subspecie who killed a whole group of our corrupted karougals, pushing the corruption within them to begin a change of host but because of the treant's abnormal strength and organism the corruption wasn't able to fully dominate its will and they somehow...merged."
"Mmh...merging with the corruption...interesting discovery...But strong or not this thing is too close of the civilisation, give it the order to go in the a less populated area and continue the research of the shrines. i don't want to risk it being defeated and drawing attention toward us, the locals are already on guards it would get dangerous if they knew about our little experiences."
"Even if i am certain that the treant won't be defeated this easily because it possess a powerful regenerative ability further enhanced by the corruption making it nearly immortal as one would need a really powerful magic to properly kill it, your wishes are my orders master Eins, i will try to give it the instructions. Wait a second please."
After bowing toward his master, he calmly walked toward an altar at the foot of the crystallised tree where was floating a palm sized orb covered in purple runes and begun to move his hands around it, lightly tapping the surface once in a while before turning his face back at his master, a jubilant smile plastered on his hooded face.
"Master, it seems that the corrupted treant found a 'direct link' and it is currently in fighting state against the entities blocking the way!"
The jubilation of the disciple contaminated the master and he as well begun to show an happy expression while laughing loudly.
"Kah kah kah! It looks like our god is with us! To find a 'direct link' in one day, we truly are blessed!"
"Do i still ask it to retreat?"
"No, no, absolutely not! Change the order from 'retreat' to 'corrupt the link before retreating'. It would be a shame if we were to let such a chance slip out of our hands"
Nodding at his master's instruction the hooded young man refocused on the orb...
"Understood master, I'm encoding the ord....how?!"
Before freezing in his motion after reading the information displayed by the artifact.
Unable to understand his disciple's reaction the older man neared him and begun to snap his fingers in front of the dead fish eyed disciple.
"Disciple? What's happening?"
"The treant's signal is disappearing!"
Quickly coming back to himself, the disciple responded in one go.
"..."
Creating an akward silence between them as the master was still processing the information and the disciple was too scared of what would happen if he was to open his mouth.
"Kah kah kah! That's a good one disciple! If we lost the signal it would mean that the corruption itself was subdued and for such an event to happen it would mean that a powerful purification magic was used but there isn't anybody able to do this in this part of the forest kah kah kah! You jester kah kah kah you need a raise for pulling jokes like that kah kah kah! what's your name disciple?"
Unable to take the information for something else than a joke, Eins was thrown in a state of advanced hilarity, laughing his ass off on the floor.
However, unlike the master, the disciple was rather serious and pointed at a bunch of leaves of the crystalline tree, slowly shattering.
"My name is Brion. But Master you should look at this as well..."
Still on the floor the older man tried to look at what Brion was showing through his teary eyes and this time it was his turn to freeze on the spot when he saw the state of the tree...
"MOVE!"
The coin finally falling, Eins jumped up before ruthlessly grabbing the disciple's collar and throwing him toward the mob of hooded figures which begun to gather after hearing the characteristic laugh of their hierarchical superior.
"I'm sorry masteeeeeer!" *BLAM*
"Aaah... It's Brion's turn this time."
"Master Eins always turn violent in stress periods..."
"To think that the last time was three days ago..."
"Yeah i heard about it, is there any news of the two who got involved?"
"Apparently they won't be able to walk before a long time"
"Shut up disciples! i need to focus!"
He didn't spared a glance at the mass of disciple gossiping and looking at him with various expressions, completely focused on the manipulation of the orb.
"By Sammael, he was saying the truth a powerful magic is trying to purify it..."
*BLAM*
Reaching the peak of his frustration, the eyes getting a bit teary after looking at what was displayed in front of him he slammed his fist on the top of the altar before closing his eyes, trying to calm himself and resuming his operations on the spheric artefact
"Calm yourself Eins, it will be fine, let's first engage the defence mode to see if it go through...
Save the historic....
Even though our informants said that there wasn't anyone able to use such a level of magic in the south, paid too much for their work, they will hear about me...
SHIT it's going through! those assholes, destroying months of research....
If i get my hand on you fuckers, whoever you are..."
After mumbling some incomprehensible things, his anger resurfaced and he had to once again do a slight pause to breath out the bulging wrath parasiting his thoughts.
"Fu...Fu...Calm down...then i have to record the magic signatures in the area..."
Lifting an eye to look at the state of the tree, his face turned grim when he saw that the the whole branch was going to shater in seconds
"SHIT! Do it quickly or else it might disappear..."
A vein begun to pop on his covered face as he was whispering a vast amount of curse and having a hard time registering the flow of informations coming from the orb which was spinning quicklier each second between his shaking hands.
"Oh come on! Something of this level should be easy to...
YES! YES!GOT YOU BASTARD! "
the moment the whole branch was finally crumbling with a glass shatering sound, he moved his arm with his fist closed in a succes motion, seemingly having found what he wanted.
"KAH KAH KAH! One kilometer east of CaelCirk! If any of you ever set another foot too far of your city i will have you hunted down!"
Overjoiced and not even thinking about the huge lost he suffered, he extirped a dark pebble from his pocket that he immediately approached of the orbs, transfering some of the runic writing from the artefact to the darkish stone before finally facing the twenty hooded figures surrounding him.
"Disciples! I need volunteers to send new orders to the agents near CaelCirck right now!
The order is: 'Find today's traffic record, put each of the people on this list under surveillance and sent a searching party to go as soon as possible at the last coodinate of the corruption to investigate what happened.'
And you there! duplicate this memory pebble and bring them to our corrupted hunters! There will be big games to track down!
Phew~, now that this incident is settled and that we will soon receive our distinguished guests i'm off planning our next course of action in my room, i expect favorable results from all of you.Bye bye~"
He joyfully said as he passed the pebble to one of the hooded men while walking toward the exit of the large cave.
However he stopped midway in his tracks when his eyes fell on the two unconscious disciples laying on the floor next to the door. dirtying the floor as one was apparently bleeding and the other slightly spasming, spreading even further the little pool of blood formed around them.
"Oh and before i forget, is there someone kind enough to bring those two to the infirmery? I don't want any dead bodies to pollute this room. if you have to die, atleast do it in the proper place."
--------
After i fetched the sword which ,contrary to my expectation, hadn't melted or even slightly bended in front of the extreme heat of the fire pillar but had just turned two shades darker, hope it will wash out.
It's quite the quality, i wonder what they put in their 'alken alloy'...
We quickly reached the place where Moss fought the two other treants after passing by the ravaged way left by the fight between the 'immortal' treant and the Moss. For the forest to be this devasted, it must have been a awesome fight. i'm kinda salty to have missed the show...
On the other hand i got to try out some spells and even produce such a powerful brazier so it's okay i guess.
Beside the few unlucky trees which were obliterated by the whip treant, the place was unexpectedly clean as if he waited for me to get thrown away before getting a bit serious by expertly decapiting them without causing any destruction to the background. Frankly speaking rather than a battlefield it looked more like a execution spot. This asshole...
Able to get them this easily but he still took his time and left me eating a straight in the stomach without batting an eye.
That punch was powerful you know? Because of this my shirt is good for the trash bin as there is a big tear where it connected and even now i can feel a strange sensation in my stomach. As if there was a drill making his way through my fragile anatomy, i hope it won't let a too big mark...
Once there, Moss picked some thick vines growing on the trees around us before effortlessly piling and tying up the three treants corpses, leaving the smaller and lighter one for me to drag, the only one of the five that i had yet to see, i didn't missed a lot though as it was like the sword treant but two heads smaller.
Not taking offense in the fact that stronger monster are more willing to hunt me down i begun to make a simple yet sturdy knot using the vegetal rope, tying the legs and arms together, like that they wouldn't hinder my pace by hitching with the roots and branches in the way by paying attention to leave some slack to pull.
If i remember correctly those vines are called 'cordel' and are used in the craft of bowstring. Raw they may look like a weak cable but once you boil them in a certain mixture after pealing the skin it become incredibly elastic and sturdy and even in their natural state they can easily crush their support and stand still when the climatic condition allow it, earning them the nickname 'Rogue's ropes' as they are used by bandits and other ill-willed individual ambushing people in the forest.
Even though i knew this thing weighed around the two quintals i still pulled with all my strength, taking a firm hold onto the vine while imagining my arms, back, shoulders and legs being strenghtened.
At first it didn't moved but once i was focused enough on each of my limbs, the heavy gravitational strength gluing it to the floor felt less powerful and i was able to advance toward Moss who had begun to walk after making sure that i was up to my task with an expectant smile.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
I already hear you shouting 'Bullshit! No human should be able to do something like pull two hundreds kilograms!' and you are right.
In a way it's logical for a human to not be naturally able to drag something this heavy on his own.
Ofcourse there is a non-natural way of achieving such a feat and this way is what Moss spent his time doing while fighting or moving the pile of treant close to weighing the ton. this way is the physical enhancement.
it's one of the discipline belonging to 'Magic' which is, like you should already have understood, the field of study principally centered around mana and its uses.
It's even one of the simplest one to practice, far easier to understand than the weakest magics such as wisp or firebolt for the simple reason that there isn't a thing to understand, you just have to 'feel'.
Usually when you do magic you need three things.
A mana supply high enough to fuel the magic.
A good affinity with what you want to produce.
A chant.
And optionally some imagination.
Exemple: the firebolt, a basic magic.
It asks a certain amount of mana to be successfully summoned, if you don't have or if you aren't able to manipulate this amount it will fail after producing a weak *poof*.
Then comes the affinity, i don't think i would need to explain this parameter as it is rather explicit. Basically if you don't have affinity toward a type of magic it will need more mana to produce it and it will be harder to focus on the spell, the opposite is true as well.
It can be trained by the way, but it's rather staining so few people actively practice their affinities other than their main one.
If you have enough fuel and the affinity the next step is the chant, most of the time they are just a mass of random words excessively long and hard to pronounce. It's kinda hard to visualise like that so here is the chant for firebolt. Hold your seat because here come the thing :'plythu ibafarshan uhsed ekess svent wer eaks unleas dout lirited vur pimiful vers ekess svent sia irlymi, firebolt'
Fucking long and desperately complicated to learn.
And guess what? It's only a novice rank chant! Obviously the higher you go in the ranking, the longer becomes the chant.
In fact that's one of the biggest reason why there isn't a lot of people studying magic, why common mages are physically weak as they have to spent 16 hours a day the noze in book filled with formula and why it's so long to raise in rank.
There is a way to shorten the chant to the bare minimum though, that's where the imagination come into action.
Because the true meaning of the chant is to make you unconsciously picture yourself how the magic will looks and how it will act, if you simply imagine consciously your magic's looks and properties, the chant will become obsolete.
People saw as genius because they can shorten, even if it is slightly, their chant length are just people with a bit of imagination, something hard to cultivate in a world like this one and even harder to apply as there is a strong believe in the magical institutions and other fields needing mana manipulation that a chant is an absolute necessity to summon a magic. In a way they aren't completely wrong, chants are of an capital importance, at the beginning of the learning atleast. If not for them how would you be able to get the feel and understand the mechanics behind magic, the true basis needed to be able to learn how magic works?
Well I won't continue on this subject as it would take hours to completely develope everything and directly make the transition toward the physical enhancement.
Like i said to do most magics you need to have enough mana, a good affinity and a chant, however that's not the case for physical enhancement.
You only need to have enough mana and a body trained enough to support your enhancement.
Why aren't there any chant?
Simple, to make your arm move, do you have to ask him gently while enumerating what each muscles should do at each instants or you can just do it instinctively without knowing the mechanics of your arm's musculature?
Obviously you do it instinctively, the same principle apply to body enhancement.
As it is directly linked to your brain you can unconsciously use it in case of need, impulsively at first and at will after a bit of training.
Easy, right?
I'm of the same opinion, it was really handy for someone like me who had to work as removal man and transporter.
Thinking about it remind me of that time when Hans, my senior, asked me to move a fridge from the first floor to the sixth one of a building without elevator as hazing.
The face he made when i actually did it, it was as if his eyes were going to pop out of their sockets, truely a piece of art.
"pffrrt..."
Just reviewing the events in my head was enough to make me chuckle slightly and bring a stupid smile on my face drawing the attention of Moss who was pulling his own burden next to me while being deep in his thoughts until now.
"Thinking of something funny?"
"Yeah, i was remembering an old acquaintance of mine that i won't meet in while...hum Moss? Isn't the cabin in the other direction?"
"It's only now you notice that we aren't directly going to the cabin?"
"I'm kinda dense when i'm in my own thoughts but coming back to the subject, where are we going to put those things then? I hope it's not too far, they weigh their weight afterall."
I said as i pointed at the four treants behind us using my chin as my two hand were occuped.
"If my sense of direction is right, further south there is a storage that i and some acquaintances often use. As i don't want to slaughter thiefs each day it's there i stock the things with good market values and the various herbs i sometime fetch during my morning training and no, it's not far, i usually do it in ten minutes"
"By morning training do you mean using Elik's magical power to attract things that you will then oblitarate?"
"Yes, why that question?"
Is he conscious that treant are generally hunted separately by parties of experimented fighter and not in bulk? These things are atleast at the apprentice level, they aren't to be taken as lightly as a morning warming!
...
I have just realised that said like that it looks like novice, apprentice and adept rank things are weak but that's just the way the ranking system was made.
If you believe in the story behind its creation, the people who made this ranking were all individuals with monstruous strength, able to blow armies as if they were simple wisps of straw.
So it can be logic that a mere treant able to squash twenty normal fighters effortlessly was little to no threat to them.
Just saying.
In front of such casuality i could only sigh in... actually i don't even know how i should feel that's how little this man's strength makes sense.
"Nothing in particular, just to make some discussion."
Moss begun to scratch lightly his chin, making a face that was expressing great hesitation before finally meeting my eyes and asking
"I see...if you just want to make some discussion why not speak about what happened to you last night?"
Oh oh! Here comes the questions! It was beginning to get strange that everyone just accepted my entrance as if it was commonly seen.
"It's only after hunting wooden killing machines that you ask such question?"
At my remark he just shrugged his shoulder before responding
"There are things that should be discussed away from childrens"
...
The fuck with that reason?!
"So that's the reason behind Mya's and your lack of questioning about my origins, Elik's presence?"
"There is that and the fact that the princess was rather adamant about not asking you too much questions as to avoid scaring you and making you flee right away. She rarely showed so much interest in someone thus Mya and i got along with her request but i must confess that i'm rather interested after seeing your entrance and your potential thus take my chance now that she isn't around, if you really cooked them a delicious breakfast you already know the fear that these two can make a man feel."
In his eyes i could see a drop of compassion mixed in a sea of primal fear directed at those two girl upon rememberance of experiences he already went through. No need to be mentalist to understand that they were numerous and especially unpleasing.
I perceived a little tinge in my heart at the idea of the poor Moss being predated by Mya, strangely he didn't looked as impressive as before anymore and i instantly felt closer to this man thanks to the shared dreadful experience.
"Even if both of us have experienced the real meaning of terror i won't be able to satisfy your curiosity as even i don't know why or how i got into this situation, i was just thrown in the sky without any warning and fell toward what i though as my death."
"Said like that it looks like you have a horrible luck."
"The expression 'horrible luck' is the true definition of my life, you saw what happened with the treants, right?"
"You mean their strong attirance toward you? It's true that they were rather fixed on you, even after you got blown away they would continue to move toward you without minding me."
"Yeah, i'm the kind of person who always slip on things on the floor, get into impossible situations, receive the lost projectiles in the head and attract ill-intended beings. So getting set as target by a bunch of monsters is rather normal for me."
"Now that you make me think of it... Not all treants were moving toward you, it was the case of those four but not the strange one. Unlike the others, that one really wanted to get my skin. Speaking of which, do you know anything about what this black thing was?"
"Not a clue, it could be a lot of things. Maybe dark magic? Or a strange parasitic thing coming from the center of the forest? This place is so fucked up that it wouldn't even surprise me."
He put his hand back on his chin and resumed his scratching session, deep in thought before answering my proposition.
"Even if i don't know a thing in dark arts, both could make sense to me. Better investigate it...Look we have arrived"
He said as we stopped at the edge of another clearing connected to a road, around three time bigger than the one containing Moss cabin and where a two story tall building made of gray bricks and taking the whole two third of the place was taking the sun.
"It's big... and are you sure it's a good idea to make me come around because, you know, i'm human and stuff"
"Everyone say it the first time they see it and don't worry about that, there is hardly anyone at this hour and they aren't judging upon the race but upon the acts don't cause a ruckus and there won't be any regretable incidents, follow me."
He said as he waved me to follow him at the building's side opposite to the road from his free hand.
That man...
"Alright then, If you get problems i'm not responsible of anything."
I could only sigh in mild-exhasperation in front of his casuality.
"GAHAHAH! It's impossible to have problems when you have a weapon crafted by my father. you can put it here, someone will get it inside for us later."
Laughing and praising his father handicraft he stopped in front of a door big enough to let one relatively large malboon carriage pass and begun to toss his treants in a clean line, not wasting any time i followed his example and gently placed my small treants in the corner.
"So are we done?"
I asked as our spoil was delivered and there wasn't any reason to stay here more than this
"Yep, now we get back and begun the real training"
"Good for you"
I responded with a relaxed smile as i will soon be able to refresh my throat with Moss tea and fill my belly with his cookies while lazing around.
However my smile died prematuraly when i met Moss fired up eyes.
"Ofcourse you will participate!"
Wait what?! training with this monster!? No no no no i pass!
"What?! Wait!gufu-"
But before i could refuse he grabed me by the collar of my shirt and begun to drag me toward his cabin.
"It had been a long time since i got such a good material to train. You really thought that i would let you go like that, don't you? GAHAHAHA!"
I tryed to free myself but in front of his abnormal grip i couldn't do anything beside save my breath and wait for death.
...
...
Somebody, help me!